A rival Big Ten coach should be Penn State’s top target to replace James Franklin

Saturday was a disaster for the Penn State Nittany Lions as Northwestern came into Happy Valley on homecoming and handed James Franklin's team their third loss of the season and their third loss in a row. After losing back-to-back weeks to UCLA and Northwestern, it became clear that a change needed to be made within the program.

On Sunday Afternoon, the Penn State Nittany Lions pulled the plug, firing James Franklin amid this disaster of a season.

There will be plenty of names mentioned as potential successors to James Franklin at Penn State as the Nittany Lions will certainly go after one of the biggest names they can get. While the likes of Eli Drinkwitz, Matt Rhule, Matt Campbell, and others will be mentioned in the discussions, there's only one name that makes sense.

Penn State has to land Curt Cignetti to lead the turnaround

While the Penn State Nittany Lions were busy losing to Northwestern on Saturday, Curt Cignetti took his Indiana team on the road and knocked off Oregon in impressive fashion. If there's any coach that Penn State should go all-in for it's the Indiana Head Coach as he's been on an incredible tear the last two years.

Curt Cignetti took over an Indiana program that was an afterthought in the Big Ten and took them to the College Football Playoff in his first season. This season, the Indiana Hoosiers look like one of the best teams in the Country, yet when you look at the talent on their roster, they should never beat a team built of 5-stars like Oregon.

The biggest issue with James Franklin was that he could never beat the more talented teams like Ohio State and Michigan. Curt Cignetti has shown he can do more with less and looking at any other coach for this job would be a massive mistake. Penn State has all the resources to pull off a heist of Cignetti and they'll need to make him an offer he can't refuse.